McDyess longs for ‘icing on cake’

At some point tonight, if Gregg Popovich is willing, Antonio McDyess will rise from his seat on the Spurs’ bench, strip off his warm-ups, head to the scorer’s table and reach a plateau he once thought impossible.

His 1,000th regular-season NBA game.

“I’m blessed to have made it this far,” said McDyess, the Spurs’ 36-year-old reserve forward.

It is an interesting coincidence that McDyess’ milestone is likely to come against the Detroit Pistons, who visit the AT&T Center tonight. It was in Detroit that McDyess’ career, once left for dead, was revived.

There was a time, a decade ago, when McDyess would have felt blessed to just make it to 500.

Betrayed by his left knee, which required a pair of major surgeries before his 30th birthday and wiped out nearly 2 1/2 seasons, McDyess seriously considered retirement in 2003-04, at the age of 29.

The Pistons scooped McDyess from the scrap heap that offseason, breathed new life into his career and, the following season, nearly gave him an NBA championship ring.

Which is what will make tonight so bittersweet for him.

The Pistons and Spurs have taken divergent paths since their meeting in the 2005 NBA Finals. The Spurs have remained on the short list of title contenders and enter tonight’s game with the league’s best record (51-12).

After breaking an eight-season playoff streak last year, Detroit (23-41) is on pace to miss them again.
“It’s kind of tough to see those guys struggle,” said McDyess, who spent five seasons in Detroit. “I’ve still got a lot of friends over there.”

The Pistons’ struggles haven’t just been relegated to on the court. Detroit coach John Kuester has feuded with star guard Richard “Rip” Hamilton, benching him for 23 of 24 games at one point.

On Feb. 25, Kuester faced a team mutiny when six players missed shootaround before a game in Philadelphia with excuses of varying validity.

Throughout the Pistons’ soap operatic season, McDyess has been in frequent contact with some of his former teammates, Hamilton in particular.

McDyess’ assessment of the situation: “It’s a bad time up there.”

McDyess said he feels most sorry for Hamilton, who has returned to the rotation, logging 26 minutes in each of the past three games.

“Rip is a winner,” McDyess said. “He just likes to step on the court and give you what he’s got, regardless of the situation. To see him on the bench is hard for me to imagine.”

As the state of affairs in Detroit has unraveled, McDyess finds himself inching closer to perhaps his best shot at a championship since the 2005 Finals.

The Spurs, barring unforeseen collapse, are likely to earn the Western Conference’s top seed and home-court advantage throughout the postseason.

If the Spurs do cash in their spectacular regular season for NBA title No. 5, McDyess will be a reason. Though he is logging a career-low 17:48 per game and averaging lows in scoring (4.9 points per game) and rebounding (five per game), McDyess’ defensive versatility has been invaluable.

“He’s an even better on-ball defender than we expected,” Popovich said. “We knew he was tough. We knew he was a good rebounder. He can hit an open shot. But he can guard a bigger variety of people than we thought.”

McDyess has played so well in his 14th season that some in the organization — including Popovich and team captain Tim Duncan — have wondered if maybe he ought to rethink his planned retirement at the end of the season.

For now, McDyess is still leaning toward quitting. He doesn’t expect his career games-played meter to surpass 1,018.

If this is to be his last season, McDyess — who has also appeared in 94 career playoff games — would like to go out with the one thing the Pistons could never give him. A title, he says, would be “icing on the cake.”

“I would have accomplished all my goals,” McDyess said. “I would be speechless.”